Blow-Up (1966) Blow-Up (1966)

See also: _Index | Plot Summary (Blow-Up) | Plot Structure (Blow-Up) | Backbeats (Blow-Up) | Themes and Analysis (Blow-Up) | The Blow-Up, Conversation, Blow Out Trilogy

Quick Facts

  • Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
  • Screenplay: Michelangelo Antonioni and Tonino Guerra, English dialogue by Edward Bond, inspired by Julio Cortázar's short story "Las babas del diablo" (1959)
  • Starring: David Hemmings (Thomas, the fashion photographer), Vanessa Redgrave (Jane, the woman in the park), Sarah Miles (Patricia, the painter's wife/lover), John Castle (Bill, the painter), Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills (the two teenagers), Verushka (the model in the opening shoot), Peter Bowles (Ron)
  • Cinematography: Carlo Di Palma
  • Editor: Frank Clarke
  • Music: Herbie Hancock; The Yardbirds appear in the Ricky-Tick club scene
  • Runtime: 111 minutes
  • Production Company: Bridge Films / Carlo Ponti
  • Distributor: Premier Productions / MGM (US)
  • Release Date: December 18, 1966 (US)
  • Awards: Palme d'Or, Cannes 1967

Overview

A successful young fashion photographer in Swinging-London 1966 takes a series of long-lens snaps of a couple embracing in Maryon Park,b14 is chased down by the woman who wants the negatives,b15 and discovers — only when the prints are blown up to grain — that he has photographed what may be a murder.b27 b32 The investigation that follows is conducted entirely with cameras and enlargers; by the time he returns to the park to confirm the body, the body is gone,b41 and by the time he tries to tell anyone what he saw, his evidence has been stolen,b35 his print torn up, his world reabsorbed into the parties and pop concerts and erotic distractions of the city.b40 The film closes on a mime troupe playing imaginary tennis in the same park, and Thomas, after watching the invisible ball go over the fence, walks out to retrieve it — agreeing, finally, to play the game on the world's terms.b42 b44 Adapted loosely from Julio Cortázar's "Las babas del diablo," Blow-Up directly seeded Brian De Palma's Blow Out (1981) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974), and remains one of the central films on perception, evidence, and the limits of mechanical reproduction.